or enjoyment rather
than protection of a working community is not capital, and may be
destroyed by fire or storm without serious disturbance of industry. The
loss is bravely met, the hardship endured and extra energy put into
restoration. A farmer may lose a fine house and by living in less comfort
for a time restore it, while the loss of his teams or his barns may
cripple his industry. In the great Chicago fire of 1871 the wealth
destroyed is estimated at $50,000,000, while the loss of actual capital
may have been only $5,000,000. An energetic use of the capital remaining
wrought apparent wonders in the restoration of wealth. Indeed, the total
capital of our country is supposed to be only three times the annual
product of industry, though a century of labor could not restore it if
destroyed entirely, because effective tools would be wanting.

The capital of an individual is such a portion of his wealth as he is
using to maintain and increase his wealth. The capital of a country
includes all the farms, so far as they are made such by improvements
directly or indirectly, including all ways and means of communication and
transportation, for roads contribute to all goods drawn over them; all
buildings devoted to systems of production, including necessary protection
of laborers themselves; all tools, machines and contrivances for power;
all animals employed in connection with industry; all materials of
construction or growth; all materials consumed in securing and maintaining
power, as fuel, lubricating oil, etc., or in performing operations of
manufacture, as dye stuffs; subsistence for the workers, the brutes they
use, and the families which keep up the life and comfort of the people;
the necessary stock in trade, that all wants may be readily supplied; all
the machinery of trade for ready transfers, including any actual wealth in
form of money; all the governmental machinery for protection and
maintenance of order, as a first essential to wealth-producing.

All these are more simply grouped in their different relations to labor
under three classes: first, as sustaining labor by food, clothing,
protection and material on which to work; second, as aiding efficiency by
tools, machines and stored up forces; third, as stimulating exertion by
reducing present anxieties and arousing more far-reaching plans for future
undertakings, illustrated by possession of satisfactory stocks of goods or
comfortable homes for families.

_C